Janet

Rainbow Mums

Stumpy's about to get some company!!

This week I stopped in at this wonderful perennial garden farm in Carlisle, MA - Rainbow Mums and I know that I'll be going back there soon!

The owners, Kathy and Mark showed me all around and took all kinds of time with me to share ideas about what kinds of perennials might work well together and in what conditions....and just shared with me their deep love and tremendous beauty of their place!

Their main premise is to provide people with their own home-grown specialty perennials -especially concentrating on fall blooms. The "selling point" that got me was the large size of their plants and the most reasonable prices they sell them at! I don't have to wait 3 years for these perennials to fill in...they're ready to POP!, fill in garden space, and just beautifully catch your eye! They have acres and acres of gardens and plants to show you and love to share all kinds of good info and tid-bits about each individual plant.

The plants that I bought from them are just gorgeous and hearty/hardy (is there a difference between these two words?!), and are ready to up-grade my garden look and fullness in a minute (well, maybe a few hours...after all this heavy rain, I still have to put them in the ground!!)

Check out their website...better yet, take a field trip there and enjoy the beautiful grounds that they've created. They've got beautiful Hostas (yes, I've finally started to admit that Hostas are beautiful!); gorgeous Ornamental Grasses; Black-eyed Susans; Echinacea; Asters, Ferns, Mums, ground covers and so much more!

http://rainbowmums.com/index.html

I'll add some pictures from our place once they're all planted!

Stumpy

When we first moved here over 5 years ago there was a broken down chain link fence that surrounded the house. Along with taking care of almost everything else that we did on the inside of the house to make it more habitable (the toilet that didn't work; the shower that was only dribble-force for over a year; the paneling and endless layers of wallpaper that covered the bare plywood walls; and the list could go on and on...!), one raw March day Ace attacked the outside fence. With wire snips and a Saws-All, he got the unsightly chain link fence into smaller sizes, rolled those pieces up and stacked them on the side of the garage. He then took the Saws-All and went at the fence poles and their cement footings that held them into the ground. It was quite a chore.

When spring and summer finally rolled around I eyeballed the yard and thought about what to do with it. After years of putting in pretty nice sized gardens in the couple of places that we'd rented, I just shook my head and realized that any thoughts of gardening were going to have to be delayed until some major cleaning up took place.

And, that's just what I did the first three summers...I didn't put a plant in the ground. All I did was hack away at the side yard beside the garage where I had friend, Rob chainsaw dead tree after dead tree down, and even a few live ones. It was thick with brush and weeds and most of all trash...bottles, plastic bags, broken toys....just piles and piles of trash!

Whenever anyone asked me how my gardening was going, I'd always shake my head and say, "I haven't gotten to "creative mode" yet, I feel like I'm still in clean-up crew/destructo mode!" Even though I was cleaning up alot of the stuff, I still wasn't feeling the urge to plant anything or create anything new. Once enough of the rubble was removed I could slowly feel the vision for what was next.

The first step was to get some mulch dropped off....I mean a major truck load! I called Jack and Debbie and Jack had it piled up in that side yard the next day. It was a big pile! Everyone who drove by asked if I intended to cover our whole yard with mulch! Oh no, I had another idea...and soon, actually after another truck load and two summers of working it, I spread it all out in the area next to the garage. Once that was done and a few brush fires later to clean up the remaining brush, I could finally start to look to the front yard. Three years! (It was pointed out to me that in my zealous efforts to clear things out that I actually cut down my neighbor's dead trees and cleared brush in about ten-by-sixty feet of his yard! Ah well, he got some free property improvements!)

When I finally put my attention to the front yard I saw the real "Stumpy" for first time. That was the nickname that I chose to call this 4-foot tall and 2-foot wide stump that was left in our front yard. For some reason, whoever chose to cut it down left a sizable amount of it still standing. It looked awkward and out of place and I just couldn't focus on what my next step would be to spruce up our front yard until I dealt with Stumpy.

I thought about cutting it down, but that seemed an unnecessary expense at that time. As I continued to dwell on Stumpy's fate, it dawned on me that perhaps the best, most fertile soil anywhere in my yard was inside of Stumpy. One day I went out with my little gardening tools and just kept hacking away at the inside of this stump and, indeed, the soil was very peaty and once chopped up, somewhat light and workable.

As if in a trance, I added some potting mix to this peaty mixture and planted some seeds in it, just to see what would happen. Soon, my snow peas were coming up and as I excitedly tended them I decided to splurge on a couple more plants. Stumpy soon had a light green fluffy top of Artemesia (Wormwood), to which I added another more spikey blue-green ornamental grass...with all of the shelf fungus and other "things" that were starting to grow at the base of the stump as well as on the bark itself, Stumpy's "personality" was starting to take shape!! A sort of whimsical, quirky and goofy look, but much more presentable than being just a drab stump with nothing to do!

One day I found his face and decided to place it on him. All year round now, Stumpy has a different look to "his" personality. In the spring I eagerly await the new growth from last year to pop up out of the top of Stumpy. And, every summer now I place in some new and different plants to add to his seasonal look. In the fall he gets more of a harvest/autumnal look often with Chrysanthemums crowning him. And, in the winter, Stumpy bears through the elements, often covered with mounds of snow, but still managing to peek through and give passer-bys a smile! My eight year old neighbor, Virginia, loves to come by and check out what latest things are growing in or on Stumpy. She's even taken to calling him, Stumpy, too!

Slowly, but surely, the front yard will develop its own look, and Stumpy, if still able to stand (his bark is rapidly peeling off this summer?!), will be a part of that look. Whimsical, quirky, and goofy...but, certainly not your ordinary, drab-looking stump with nothing to do!

Fun in the Sun

We had a great week last week at a tiny little cottage in Humarock. Ace had just finished a big, long-term paint job and needed a break, and this last minute opening came up for a tiny beachside cottage. So we jumped at it.

We stayed right on the beach in a sweet little old-style cottage, falling asleep and waking up to the crashing of the waves just outside our sliding screen door.

The days were sunny, but the water was a tad brisk...like -immediately numbing to the ankles! However, on our last day the wind shifted from off shore and miraculously the temperature of the water was actually okay, so we dove in. (Okay, I didn't dive in...I never do, even when it's bathwater!) My friend Pam, however, who lives down there and is a "Professional Beach Queen", does, indeed just 1, 2, 3 dive right in!... I guess if you're used to diving in on New Year's Day as she and her son regularly do, it's nothing to just hop in in July, no matter what the temps...especially when you can come right back out and immediately warm up in the hot sun again!

Ace had his own "Cairns Festival." As you can see with the photos, he spent some time (or, meditation, as he chose to call it), perfecting his rock stacking techniques. By the end, I was calling him "The Ace of Cairns." One couple stopped by the cottage and asked about them as they examined his examples that spread across the deck. They admitted to sneaking up a day earlier and checking them out, then headed back to their cottage to share with their family this "fun activity!" But, they somehow weren't as successful as Ace in their methods, so they came back to take a second look and learn some tips from the Master! I don't think they quite saw it as the meditative experience that the "Ace of Cairns" did, they seemed to be approaching it more from an Olympic event...who can build the tallest cairn?!

Our final night there we experienced one crash-bang-up thunder and lightning storm. For about a half hour we saw the storm moving toward us from the distance. Soon enough, lightning cracked all around us and thunder booms shook the tiny cottage. In the face of a storm like this, in a tiny little cottage, we felt pretty tiny too. At least we had the shelter of the little cottage to watch the show from and even as the power flickered on and off, we were in awe of it all.

Great walks every day, meditative cairn building, wonderful weather, relaxing beach time, glorious sunsets over the river, and the never-ending ocean right in front of us every day...ah, nothing like some time at the beach.

The Beauty of Perennials

I finally got a chance to get back out into the yard and work on some of my gardening efforts from last year. As I was weeding some crabgrass out of the area on the side of the road where I'd planted an edging of Catnip and Hostas, I had to keep one eye out over my shoulder as cars fly up to this corner certainly paying no attention to any roadside gardeners.

During one quiet period when I was absorbed in cleaning up the unwanted crabgrass, I heard someone say something. I looked up and saw a woman walking by on the other side of the road. She was commenting on how lovely the flowers looked and asked if they were Lavender plants. Indeed the splays of light purple flowers that have blossomed on the Catnip do look pretty nice as they stretch out along the roadside. I explained to the admirer that, no, this was Catnip, and that I'd planted it there because I knew it would spread, as well as thrive, even in this lousy, sandy, side-of-the-road soil. I also said to her that, more importantly, I just want to cover all parts of our lawn with anything that grows well on its own and therefore makes it less for me to have to mow! And, that was before all the talk about the price of gas going up, up, up! Now I've come to realize - for more reasons than just my sprawling catnip that I've become a perennial lover!

As she walked on, I thought back to my efforts of last summer working on the side of the road trying to make this patch of our property a little bit nicer to look at and provide us with an area that we wouldn't need to mow. I had to laugh at the number of times after all my days and hours of effort, I'd look out the window and see a car pulled over, tires crushing onto my bank of plants; or, last fall when the Town workers took down the big dying Maple from across the road and seemed to need to use our yard as their staging area...feet of the wood chipper planted firmly onto my bed of plants! The steady winter snows brought snowplow after snowplow down this road constantly pushing these heavy piles around, making me certain that my efforts with these plants was for naught. Even this spring Town workers from another department came to patch up the road at the corner, and apparently again needed this exact area to place their heavy paver while they spread new tar onto the road. Geesh, as if I hadn't placed these plants in tough conditions anyway...now all this!

But, inspite of all that rough mistreatment, my hearty Catnip and Hostas have survived, and are indeed thriving! I have to smile at the size of them, remembering I'd purchased the almost dying, dried out 6" plants for half-price and as I dug them in, shook my head with uncertainty while looking at the sandy soil that they were going into as I wished them, "Good Luck!"

.

Now, I'm happy to say that the heartiest of them has spread to over two-feet in diameter and the bees are delighted to swarm around their delicate little purple flowers. And, along with drawing some compliments from passerbys, I now don't have to mow that whole 40' x 4' swath! As I look out at the rest of the yard I realize that now I'm going to have to get out there and put in some more perennials to add to its beauty and reduce my yard and mow-time even more!

Hen of the Woods

I've noticed quite a few of these intriguing looking mushrooms on my way to work these past few weeks. Hen of the Woods mushrooms will grow often on dead or dying oak trees...usually at the base of the tree like the one in the picture, though there is one that I see that is about twenty feet up, growing off of a sawed-off limb. They can get pretty big - forty to fifty pounds!

Years ago we had one growing out in front of the old farm house, but didn't know of it's tasty goodness until a friend stopped by and told us what a find we had in our yard. He suggested we wait until the weekend because it was going to rain and the moisture would plump it up nicely. Unfortunately, some other mushroom lover had his eye on the big fungus and cut it right to the ground while we were sleeping early that Sunday morning. That's when we learned how these were not just tasty woodland offerings free for the picking. All the up-scale restaurants in Boston pay a pretty high price for them and there are people who scout these things out as soon as the season begins. Apparently, once the spore is embedded in one of these trees they'll regrow there year after year. Some people have developed a regular lucrative route they go on every Sept./Oct. to harvest these big, fleshy mushrooms and then drive them in to have the chefs hand-select the menu's "Woodland Delicacy - Fungus of the Night." We learned that our oak tree/Hen of the Woods had been on someone's route for more than a few years!

We hiked around with our friend and found another Hen of the Woods on the property, not quite as large, but big enough to fill a few frying pans! We washed it gently, it wasn't very dirty at all...then sliced it up into some firm, ivory colored chunks. Tossed around with a little bit of olive oil in the pan... they were so tasty. I want to say like nothing I've ever eaten before, certainly nothing like the commercial mushrooms that we buy in a store. Earthy, yet not heavy or musty...just a wonderful food from the earth that comes around this time of year. You've gotta try it some time!

I've got lots of large old oaks in my back yard now. In another month I'll be cursing all the leaves and acorns that they shed as I take on the never-ending task of raking them up by the carloads. Maybe I'll find some of that Hen of the Woods spore to "inoculate" them with and see if in another year or so I can harvest my own Hen of the Woods. Maybe even start my own route and venture into those up-scale restaurants with mushroom bounty to sell! And, in the fall when I have to get the rake out every weekend, maybe it'll help make me appreciate those big old oaks a little more!

                                                          

A Splash of Mermaids

A Splash of Mermaids came in to the shore

To share their tales of life, love and more.

They'd played and laughed together when they were quite young

As just wee Mer-lasses, they'd had oh so much fun.

**

                           Time rolled by, as did the tides                                             

The Mermaids traveled through life so far and so wide.

Not oft together for too many years,

Until the call came, a sound special to their ears.

**

"Come together again,"  the voice, it did say.

"Remind us all of who we all were and are to this day."

And the young girls they did come to share their lives' tales and fears

Older Mermaid eyes smiled with love and all spilled Mermaid tears.

**

Since that time when the Murmur of Mermaids did rise

They all came together with a sparkle of love in their eyes.

Young together once and now grown with life's time                

To bask in the joy and life's heart sublime.

**

A Splash of Mermaids came together today,

A Siren, an Allure, a Murmur, you'd say

A Marvel of Mermaids came in to the shore,

To share their tales of life and love, and oh so much more.

                                                   

The Teapot Cafe

Friends have just taken over The Teapot Cafe on Stow Rd. off of Rte. 111 in Boxborough, MA. (Formerly The Teapot Tea Room).

It's located in a lovely old Colonial farmhouse with wooden floors and exposed beams and,for any of you sewing enthusiasts, is situated next to a little quilting shop - The Quilted Crow. Ace painted the walls, changing the Pepto-Bismal pink to a soft and soothing Sage with golden Concord Linen on the contrasting walls.

They serve lunch and afternoon tea. Lunch consists of Panini sandwiches, soups, salads and some scrumptious desserts! Afternoon tea is a special affair with pots of tea of your choice (and they have lots of choices!),those little sandwiches with the crusts cut off yet full of dainty but tasty items like radishes and cucumbers, chicken salad with heirloom tomatoes or grapes, clotted cream, and savory dessert treats. yum!

Lunches are served Tuesdays through Saturdays from 11:30 'til 2:30 (ish) and they are open for a traditional afternoon tea from  2:30 to 4:30. They're closed Sundays and Mondays, though available for private functions on those days as well as most evenings. As of now they don't have a liquor license, but can get temporary ones for one-night affairs.

Oh yeah, and they have a little gift shop with some fun and fancy items! Along with teas and award winning local honey, the gift shop has some nice jewelry, framed photographs, some silly flamingo pens (because everyone needs a little silliness in their lives!), teapots from England, and some beautifully printed coasters, light switchplates, and other items from Nova Scotia. If you know of any artisans who might like to display their wares, have them give a call.

Most important! Don't forget to purchase a couple of cards from Concord River Studios - there are some sweet photos that are suitable for every occasion and very reasonable in price! Tell them you know the owner of Concord River Studios (that would be me...hehehe!), and they'll give you an even sweeter deal!!

The Teapot Cafe - a pleasant destination or a nice stop for leaf peepers on a fall foliage tour, teachers celebrating a day off, bikers - Harley or 10-speed, husbands and wives, mothers and daughters, Red Hatters, tea parties for your grand-daughter and her friends; or neighbors just getting together for a delightful afternoon are all welcome. Sounds relaxing, tasty and enjoyable, eh?!

The Teapot Cafe  http://www.theteapotcafe.com/

61 Stow Rd.

Boxborough, MA

(978)635-1519

http://www.thequiltedcrow.com/

Tis the Season!

              I can't say enough about the wonderful tastes of this time of the year in New  England!  Freshly picked corn on the cob steamed just a tad so that's it's a light al dente crunch as the sugars spill out into your mouth. A little butter and salt can sometimes enhance the flavors even more, but sometimes just the ear of corn right out of the steamer is real fine.....

                                                   Ummm, ummm good!

                                     And, tomatoes... yum...I've been eating one a day since they started harvesting them at Verrill and Cucurbit Farms a few weeks back. Cucurbit keeps running out of what they put out to sell -- drives me nuts! Verrill carries a lot of the heirloom varieties that are so fun to be surprised with as you bite into them. Some are so sweet you'd think they were candy (those little grape ones?...yum!). Others with a nice sprinkle of salt just wake up in your mouth and remind you what a real tomato tastes like, and makes me swear each year that I'll never eat one of those super market nothing-tasting things again...until about February, when I just want a tomato, then get disappointed when I fall for those cardboard looking things they call tomatoes...ah well, all the more reason to enjoy them all right now when they are so fresh and so good tasting and so real!!!

Guy Clark wrote a great song honoring the taste of homegrown tomatoes...

here's his toe-tapping chorus refrain --

                                         "Homegrown tomatoes homegrown tomatoes
                                         What'd life be without homegrown tomatoes
                                         Only two things that money can't buy
                                         That's true love & homegrown tomatoes"

And, then there's watermelon.....juicy, drooling down your chin, sweet, sweet watermelon.....ummmm, ummmm, ummmm....been having some of this everyday too. How can you not when all these good flavors are in town for just such a short time?!

These three treats I just couldn't live without and they just say "SUMMER!" to me !!

Life's Mysteries

MARY'S  DREAM

At 89 years old Mary Ellis rarely dreams at night. She hasn't dreamt in years, she claims. So, she was a bit rattled recently when she woke up to a very intense dream. A dream that was so life-like to her that she could feel and sense everything that was going on in it. Too life-like for her liking.

Mary is a twin. Well, actually, was a twin is somewhat more accurate. Her sister Dora died six years ago after being taken over by the clutches of Alzheimers for several years before that. As close as Mary and Dora were all through growing up and even in their adult years, the last several years were hard for Mary to see her sister's decline, and perhaps most of all, to lose their close relationship, especially as her sister lived her last years in oblivion. That was so hard for Mary to accept.

As other family members passed on, the family matriarchy has fallen upon Mary. She reluctantly wears the crown that goes with this title. "Why me? I never wanted to be this old! How did this happen?"

Recently she's grown sad about it - losing everyone in her life, having no one to share the stories of her youth with, laugh with, enjoy her life with. Don't get me wrong, Mary is not wallowing in self-pity in her old age. She gets up every morning before 5 AM, has her coffee and does her crosswords. She gets dressed, and I mean dressed -- I've never seen her in a pair of pants in my life! She puts on a beautiful suit just as she had from her working days as head secretary (we'd call her an Administrative Assistant these days) to Edwin Land of The Polaroid Corporation. She wears stockings and a pair of short heeled pumps and heads out with a matching coat and bag to meet the bus for her daily jaunts to town to meet friends for coffee or go shopping at TJ Maxx or Marshall's.

She cuts a striking figure even now, though over the years her weight has been steadily dropping. She might weigh about 72 pounds right now. "I've just lost my appetite," she says. But, all that aside, she'll remind you that she's never, ever dyed her still jet black hair! Though just as quickly she'll point to a spot in her head and say with amazement, "But, look at all this white that's just started to come in."

And, I have to search and search because I can't see a spot of white in her head!

Mary called the other morning rather disoriented and rattled, as I said. As she related her dream to us you could hear the fear and anxiety in her voice. In her dream she said her sister Dora was holding her hand as they walked together. Dora was speaking to her, encouraging her to "Come with me. You'll like it here."

Dora tugged on Mary's hand harder as she pulled her toward a dark pool and said, "Just dive in."

Mary looked down into the pool and instead of the expected pool of water saw a black, oozing murky substance that scared her off. She pulled back from her sister's strong hold and said, "No, I'm not ready yet."

And, with that, Mary woke up.

As she spoke to us about the dream she was clearly still thrown off by it's hold on her. We didn't really know what to say except that dreams mean many different things...and maybe even mean nothing. Obviously, by your reaction to the dream you aren't ready to go to that next stage yet, we said. And, she agreed. "No, I guess I'm not ready for that yet. Sometimes I think I am, but I guess I'm really not."

Today we spoke with Mary as she was getting ready to jump on the bus and go meet her friends for coffee and go out shopping. Just another day.

************************************************************************************************

JIM'S DREAM

After a couple of years of declining health, my Dad decided that he was ready to die, but he wanted to die at home with Home Hospice Care assistance. The family came together to help him in his effort, trying to make it a somewhat comfortable experience and hopefully help minimize any pain he may have. I spent a couple of weeks with he and my mother and watched as he went from coherent and alert, to actively withdrawing from the life experience to tend to his dying experience. I often awoke from a very light sleep in the middle of the night to hear him speaking and go in to see if he was okay. Every night and morning he'd share with me some amazing story of places that he'd been in the night, people he was working with, and questions that he had.

One morning he woke and looked intently at me while asking, "Did you get your number yet?"

I never knew where these discussions were going to go so I always went along with him. "No. What number? Did you get one?"

"Oh, yeah. Everyone was in line for their number. Mine was 4-2-1-2." His eyes gleamed with that special sparkle that he always had when he was excited about something.

"4-2-1-2?" I repeated.

"No, no, no. I think it was 5-2-1-2. I think I might go back and check." And he drifted back off.

When he came to an hour or two later he right away said to me. "Did you remember that number I told you?"

I said, "You first thought it was 4-2-1-2, but then you changed it to 5-2-1-2."

"Oh, no. It's changed." He said with complete earnesty. "I rechecked. It's 5-6-1-2."

I repeated the numbers back to him, "5-6-1-2?"

"Yup, that's right." And he drifted off again with a settled, content look on his face.

A few days later I needed to return home, back to work. My sisters would take over.

I got the call less than a week after I returned home that Dad had passed away on December 6, 2006. That night my sister and mother saw him and knew he was in his last hours. My sister checked on him sometime after 2:30 AM and he was still breathing, although much more labored. She went back to bed, though not necessarily to sleep as she listened for the labored breathing in the next room. She got up again around 5:30 when she'd realized that she couldn't hear his breathing anymore. She called Mom in to share the news with her and as they looked down at him they saw that he had a very contented smile on his face.

Dad died sometime that night - perhaps around 5 AM. I later remembered back to his "numbers dream" -

5-6-1-2

5 AM, the 6th day of the 12th month.

5-6-1-2

Smart Cars

While in British Columbia visiting with my aunt and uncle recently, I was impressed to see a large number of Smart Cars on the roads. I understand that these small little hybrid cars - only 8 feet long by 5 feet wide and 5 feet tall -  won't be available in the US 'til 2008. It was fun to see them scooting all around on the highways and side roads as we traveled around up there. Like watching a motorcycle with a fancy box cover. Great for squeaking into little parking spaces!

However, I think that the Fitzy family would need a small fleet of them for their family outings! Perhaps they'll come up with little hitches to connect them together for larger families?! Like those railroad trains we used to play with...just hitch one on to the next, all pile in, then off you go!!

http://www.smartusa.com/index.aspx

I don't know if they'll make it in the SUV-loving US market...but, they were fun to see in action!